The year 2003 in radio involved some significant events.
Events
October 10 – Facing an investigation surrounding allegations of illegal drug use, American right-wing radio host
Rush Limbaugh publicly admits that he is addicted to prescription
pain killers, and will seek treatment.
March 31 – "
NBC News Radio," an hourly service of one-minute news updates anchored by
NBC News and
MSNBC personnel (but written by
Westwood One staffers) is launched. Westwood One still maintains production of the unrelated five-minute long "NBC Radio News"-branded newscasts in morning drive (which had been produced and anchored by
CBS Radio personnel since 1998) for one more year; they were one of a few remaining connections to the original
NBC Radio Network.
April –
KJOC in
Davenport, Iowa dumps its all-sports format and switches to talk, hoping to compete with the market's
WOC. Some sports programming – mainly, the
Chicago Cubs and
Iowa State University athletics – are held over, and (except for a few brief interim periods with ISU sports) remain to this day.
October 12 –
Billboard unveils the
Hot Dance Airplay chart. "Just The Way You Are" by
Milky is the first number one single on the published chart. Original panel:
WKTU/New York City,
KDLD/Los Angeles,
KKDL/Dallas-Fort Worth,
WQSX/Boston,
WPYM/Miami,
KCJZ/San Antonio,
KPTI/San Francisco and
KNRJ/Phoenix. All stations have since left the Dance format and panel.
August 27 -
Jinx Falkenburg, 83, who (with her husband, Tex) popularized the talk-show format, first on radio and then in the early days of television[1]
October 27 -
Rod Roddy, 66, American top-40 disc jockey and announcer, better known for his work announcing television game shows
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abcCox, Jim (2008). This Day in Network Radio: A Daily Calendar of Births, Debuts, Cancellations and Other Events in Broadcasting History. McFarland & Company, Inc.
ISBN978-0-7864-3848-8.